Monthly Archives: October 2016

Republican nominee Donald Trump was recently invited to a fundraising event organized by a conservative group of Hindu Americans, the Republican Hindu Coalition. A poster from the event, which describes the group as “Hindus for Trump,” portrays the candidate in a posture much like that of a yogi in deep meditation. It shows Trump, face […]
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The student loan scam is crushing our future, or at least the future of many of our kids. The average student loan debt for a new graduate in 2014 was around $33,000. The average student loan debt in 2015 was around $35,000, and in 2016, we’re looking at an average of $37,712, and that’s what […]
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If you were to compare a Dutch university classroom from the 2000s with one from today, one difference would jump out at you: the international character. Over the past decade and a half, internationalisation has taken flight in the Netherlands. It is not the exchange students that make the difference, even though their numbers have […]
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One of the most persistent problems facing American higher education is how best to explain its importance and endearing value to the public. The problem is that various perspectives shape the approach utilized. Higher education leadership – especially at the research universities and the liberal arts colleges – often speak to the need for America […]
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Maybe you’ve heard of the ‘PhD cliff’. Dr Lauren McGrow wrote a brilliant piece on TW about strategies to get through the final dash to submission. I’ve done some of the things she suggested and I’m so glad I did, because it’s been the hardest, busiest, stressiest time in my life. I didn’t run off […]
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The cost of academic journals has increased steeply over the past few decades and continues to climb. Academic libraries, already caught in an economic squeeze, are finding it difficult to acquire new journal subscriptions or, in the worst case, are even canceling existing subscriptions. Either way, faculty and students find they are unable to access […]
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Being a “locavore” means choosing food that is grown locally, and is one way that you can help ensure there is more food to go around. To feed the predicted nine billion people in the world in 2050, the world will need to produce 70-100% more food. This unprecedented increase in food production will require […]
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Last Wednesday night, I was trapped in my local movie theatre with an audience glued to the last of the US presidential debates. Two faces on a screen as tall as a multi-storey car park: no cutaways, no audience shots, no view of the moderator. Just the contenders, live on CNN. “What’s going to happen […]
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Higher education underwent a major shift in how our institutions are staffed. In the past, universities were staffed and run by a relatively stable caste of faculty, giving all they can to establish the reputation of the institution they were tied to. Today there are two castes: faculty and administrator. Both view their time on […]
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The high price of attending college has been among the key issues concerning voters in the 2016 presidential election. Both Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump have called the nearly US$1.3 trillion in student debt a “crisis.” During the third presidential debate on Oct. 19, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton raised the issue […]
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